Moscow
Extract: Bacon in Moscow by James BirchFriday, 07 July 2023
In 1988, James Birch – curator, art dealer, and gallery owner – took Francis Bacon to Moscow. It was, as he writes, "an unimaginable intrusion of Western Culture into the heart of the Soviet system". At a time of powerful political tension and... Read more... |
Hunting legendary treasure with ballet's Indiana Jones - Pierre Lacotte 1932-2023Wednesday, 19 April 2023
As any archaeologist knows, digging up a sarcophagus is a nailbiting business. How small are the chances that inside the shredded linen wrappings will lie a recognisable body with some vestiges of its former life upon it?Enough DNA and bone to... Read more... |
Meeting Gorbachev review - Werner Herzog offers a swansong tributeWednesday, 31 August 2022
You react differently to Meeting Gorbachev knowing that the film’s subject was on occasions brought to its interviews from hospital by ambulance; his interlocutor, Werner Herzog, doesn’t mention that fact, of course, anywhere in the three encounters... Read more... |
Killing Eve, Series 4, BBC One review - has Villanelle found God?Sunday, 06 March 2022
“I’ve killed so many people. I don’t want to do it any more, any of it.” So said Villanelle (Jodie Comer) to Eve (Sandra Oh) in the last episode of the third series of Killing Eve, soon after she’d pushed Rhian Bevan, an assassin hired by the Twelve... Read more... |
The Courier review - lacklustre spy movieFriday, 13 August 2021
It’s always a bit worrying when distributors choose to open a film in August at the best of times, but after 18 months of covid playing havoc with release schedules, the backlog of titles has to be dealt with somehow. The Courier is one such movie,... Read more... |
Killing Eve, Series 3, BBC iPlayer review - Eve and Villanelle resume operationsMonday, 13 April 2020
Instant spoiler alert: she’s not dead. But do we care? Prepare for the plumbing of new psychological depths from showrunner Suzanne Heathcote, previously story editor, appropriately enough, on Fear the Walking Dead, but that may not be enough to... Read more... |
Wallfisch, Northern Chamber Orchestra, Stoller Hall, Manchester review - Weinberg UK premiereSaturday, 09 November 2019
Everyone’s doing Weinberg now, or so it seems. The Polish-born composer who became a close friend of Shostakovich was born 100 years ago, and there’s plenty of his music to go round. Raphael Wallfisch gave the UK premiere of his Cello... Read more... |
Natalia Goncharova, Tate Modern review - a prodigious talentWednesday, 05 June 2019
The times they are a-changin’. On show at the Barbican is a retrospective of Lee Krasner’s stunning paintings and, for the first time ever, Tate Modern is hosting two major shows of women artists. At last, the achievements of great women are... Read more... |
The Good Person of Szechwan, Pushkin Drama Theatre, Barbican review - slick Russian BrechtMonday, 11 February 2019
"In our country the capable man needs luck," belts out Shen Te, the Good Person of Szechwan in the most powerful song of Brecht's epic "parable play" of 1941. "Only if he has powerful backers can he prove his capacity." Never was that more true than... Read more... |
The Cherry Orchard, Pushkin Drama Theatre, Barbican review - stunning absurdist ChekhovWednesday, 06 February 2019
There is no doubt that this Cherry Orchard, whirled into town by Roman Abramovich from Moscow, is going to be divisive. If you, like the two elegant old gentlemen sat next to me on press night, have come to see the Pushkin Drama Theatre’s... Read more... |
Panorama: Putin's Russia with David Dimbleby, BBC One review - jolly football weatherThursday, 14 June 2018
There was a lovely moment at the beginning of this Panorama where David Dimbleby was chatting to a schoolgirl – not just any schoolgirl actually, because she came from a family of 10 children, which surely makes her a bit out of the ordinary, even... Read more... |
McMafia, Series finale, BBC One review - the last bite is the cruellestMonday, 12 February 2018
McMafia has taught us to recognise one thing – you might call it the “Norton stride”. As the charismatic Alex Godman, James Norton has been advancing, confidently at screen centre, towards one challenge after another, and they have been coming (... Read more... |
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